Hello.. IS painting chrome grill a bad idea? I want to paint mine but, I am afraid it might come off later.. I know door chrome handle shound't be painted because of the contact with the hand.. What do you think??

Paint does not like to stick to chrome. As such, a paint job on chrome may not last long and never look quite right. A grill takes just as much, if not more, abuse than the door handles. Every stone, bug, etc coming at the car hits it, it gets massive heat soak from the radiator, plus it is supposed to look good 24/7...not an easy order. If you want to dress up the front of your W202, I would very seriously consider swapping in the grill from a W210 car. As far as I know they are a very easy swap. If you are interested fill out a PartsShop inquiry.

Hope this helps...Lee

AMG:

I have painted my plastic grill on the 280 SE, and it looks really nice; however, I left the chrome surround in its ntaural chrome state.

Lee is right, but it's not as if the chrome protests the presence of paint. Chrome is a very dense and smooth surface, being compose primariily of nickel. Therefore, it is too smooth to accept paint. You might wish to rough it up with emery cloth or fine sandpaper. This will give it some "tooth" to which the paint will adhere. But be aware that once you do roughen up the chrome, you can't go back to chrome if you don't like the results; at least, you would have to re-chrome.

Also, Lee is right that your grill takes lots of abuse from road debris; though my grill is painted black, I do have to occassionally touch it up with black paint. I suspect this is why MB chooses to keep the grill unpainted plastic - it being homogeneous throughout, and rock chips will never show on the grey plastic. But when the touch up paint and the grill are black, one cannot see any of these "repairs".

try it, you might like it.......Andras

Just want to thank you for your help..

Hi Andras,
Did you paint the grill yourself? What sort of paint did you use?
Regards,
Nick

I painted my plastic grill black a month or two ago after the tip from Andras. Used a hi temp spray aerosol can. The grill looks 10x better.
Mike

Nick:

yes, I did spray paint it myself. Used an aerosol spray paint formulated for plastics, since the grill is plastic.

Just remember to put newspaper or some such material under the grill, remember to hold the can almost upright, since the spray tube runs vertically in the can down to the bottom (thus won't spray the paint if it is not sticking in the paint) and be sure to start and stop the spray outside of the grill; i.e. do not stop and start the spray while over the grill. Spray past the grill (thus the need for the paper).

It is always better to put two or three thin coats on than one thick coat; be sure to wait about an hour between coats, and then let it all dry for about two or three days before re-installing in the car.

The results will please you.......Andras

Thanks Andras and Mike - I still have two more questions:
Did you use a flat or semi-gloss paint (if there is an option with the hi-temp stuff)? Did you paint the chrome strips, remove and reinstall them or remove them altogether?
Thanks again and I'll probably do this over the next weekend!

Nick

I removed the strips before I painted the grill and put them back on after.
On the first coat I used a flat paint, but I didn't like it because it was too dull so I put 2 coats of glossy paint on and it looked much better. Don't forget to clean the grill before you paint it.

Mike

Nick,

I also painted the grill a semi-gloss, since it then more nearly matches the paint on the rest of the car.

However, I left off the chrome strips, since all they do is "break up" the surface of the grill, and make it look less homogeneous. But if you do leave them off, then you can see the small bosses that hold the chrome strips. But with it being all black, at a distance of more than five feet, the entire grill looks great, no "funny" horizontal or vertical lines to break up the expanse of that great grill.

Such an easy thing to do, and much better, in my opinion, than the anonymous grey grill. And touch up is so easy.......Andras

Thanks guys.

Just a pair of cents... I would choose gloss or high gloss paint because you can always make it less glossy after it dries. Just use some #0000 steel wool from your Megaplex Home Center and go over the newly painted areas lightly until you get the reflectance you want.

After reading this post, I decided to do it on my midnight blue 87 300E and wow, it looks A LOT better. It really makes the car look newer. I used a satin finish black that I have in the garage. It was for bbq and was high temp so I went for it. It looks like the plastic was originally black. I DID, however, buy some glossy black to experiment and it looked bad. It stood out too much and you could see the imperfections in the sunlight. With the matt black, it looked perfect. Also, I would use some primer spray just in case. I used two coats. It'll probably pay off in the long run. Just wanted to share =)